Following is a guest post by Praval who is a freelance writer/blogger and works for Uswaretech, a Django Consulting shop as a Web Evangelist and Online Marketer.

Not even the creator of World Wide Web, Tim Berners- Lee, would have ever thought that his creation will lead to the formation of the biggest human communication network. Since its creation, the Internet has evolved dramatically from being a mere platform to promote consumerism to a platform which promotes socialism and human interaction. New technology has transformed the way people use the World Wide Web. Today the internet users are looking more than just information; they are searching for rich experience.

The era of web 1.0 ended with the burst of the internet bubble in the new millennium and gave way to the birth of web 2.0

What Is Web 1.0?

Yahoo!, MSN, AOL among others are pull based, vendor driven, web content providers of Web 1.0. With web 1.0 the webmasters were constantly burdened with the responsibility of updating their websites to keep the visitors informed and engaged. Some common features of web 1.0 websites includes: collection of static pages, guest-books which asks for user to give feedback, diverse use of some common HTML tags like <marquee> and <blink>, flashy banners and gif images, etc.

What is Web 2.0?

Wikipedia, MySpace, Facebook, Blogger among others are pull based user driven web content providers of Web 2.0. The webmasters share the responsibility with their internet audience for keeping the website informative and engaging. The modern website has become a dynamic place for people to regularly gather and interact rather than a simple place to store information.

Features

Facebook

YouTube

MySpace

eBay

Amazon

Content

Profiles

Videos

Profiles, blog, videos

Products

Products

Connectivity

Friends, groups

Friends

Friends, groups

-

Friends

Technical

Public API, Private messages

Public API, RSS feeds, Private messages

Public API, RSS feeds, Private messages

Public API

Public API

Detailed profile

Age, Location, Gender

Age, Location

Age, Location, Gender

Location

Location

Some features of popular web 2.0 websites

Web 2.0 vs Web 1.0

Judging whether a given site belongs to the category of Web2 or Web1 can be a difficult proposition because websites do have a version number! Moreover there are no fixed norms and outlines to classify a website.

If we analyze all the Web applications and sites that have been framed into the Web 2.0 sphere, one of the main ingredients would probably be the use of AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) programming technique â€” a technique that adds an object of real-time interactivity to Web pages. Web 2.0 has now become a platform for users who wish to share their opinion and thoughts on a preferred topic. Web 2.0 contains more organized and categorized content then Web 1.0 ever had. With web 2.0, the user is no more external to the system, but an integral part of it.

There is already a buzz about the future of Web and experts are anticipating Web 3.0 which will be a semantic web, an intelligent web with new levels of user integrity which may have features like network computing, distributed databases and more intelligent applications.

In general, Web 1.0 was "read-only", Web 2.0 is "read and write", and Web 3.0 will be "read, write and execute".

I am the editor-in-chief and owner of Techie Buzz. I love coding and have contributed to several open source projects in the past. You can know more about me and my projects by visiting my Personal Website.
I am also a social networking enthusiast and can be found active on twitter, you can follow Keith on twitter @keithdsouza. You can click on my name to visit my Google+ profile.